Orange Delicious Confection of Murder

Good Evening all,  Finally back to murder mystery cooking.  Today's recipe is a doozy.  It looks and taste just like a dreamsicle  because that's what it is in cake form-orange dreamsicle cake.  First off, your treated to a really good read before you get to the fluffy goodness at the back of the book.  The name of the book is "Death Takes the Cake" by Melinda Wells.  The book is about a home cook named Della Carmichael who has her own reality cooking show.  Her producer has signed her up to be in a cooking competition. You know how fierce we cooks are and competitive and someone will stop at nothing.  So look for a whole lot of interesting characters.  One of the characters is sugary sweet or is she.   So check it out to find out who got murdered and why and so much yummy in the back of this book.  Their is also some cooking tips in the book which I always can use tips for  my cooking.   The cake I chose for the blog is the orange dreamsicle cake, because Valentines day is around the corner and the competition in the book was going be aired on Valentines Day.  So here's the recipe bon appetite.

We did alter this recipe to fit my families needs:

Here's what you'll need:

Butter or Margarine

flour

orange cake mix  (was told was seasonal)

3 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water

1 tsp orange extract

zest of one large orange

1 package of orange jello

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 13 by 9 in pan (glass if using metal temp should be 325)

Do not follow package directions when making this cake.  Take the cake mix and add the following ingredients to a mixing bowl; 3 eggs, sour cream, vegetable oil,water, orange extract and the zest.

Mix until ingredients are moist and then beat for two minutes scraping sides with spoon.  When thoroughly mixed pour into greased pan and bake for 30 minutes or until sides of cake separate from pan.

Once you remove cake from oven you proceed to make holes in the cake.  I used a butter knife.

While the cake was in the oven I heated the water for the jello.  Take your orange jello and dissolve in 1 cup boiling water and then add 1/2 cup ice cold water once dissolved.  Then pour over cake and put cake in the fridge to cool for at least an hour.

For the topping

1 package orange jello

1 package of vanilla pudding mix

1 cup cold whole milk (I used 2 %)

zest of large orange (omitted)

1 tsp orange extract

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

8 oz container of cool whip (used reddi whip)

1 cup cold whipping cream (could not find used heavy)

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Mix jello and pudding with the milk.  Add the zest and the orange extract.  Mix until thick then add vanilla extract.  Fold the mixture into the cool whip.

In a different bowl add the whipping cream and powdered sugar until stiff.  Mine did not get real stiff probably because of the cream.  Add this to the whipped cream.  Once all mixed pour over top of cake will form a 1/2 inch layer of topping.  Decorate with whatever you want I found blood oranges at Wal mart to add to the cake.  Refrigerate cake for 2-3 hours.  When serving keep cold don't leave out much like an ice cream cake it will melt.

For easy pinning here's the link  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/362610207469396530/